The India Meteorological Department on Wednesday morning issued a nowcast warning for Maharashtra’s Pune, Satara, Solapur, Sangli and Kolhapur districts, predicting moderate to intense rainfall at isolated places in next 3 to 4 hours.
A nowcast is a prediction made by analysis of data currently available.
The IMD has also issued a similar warning for Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Dhule, Nandurbar, Osmanabad, Aurangabad, Beed and Nashik districts.
“Moderate to intense rain spells also very likely to occur at isolated places in Thane, Palghar, Mumbai and Raigad during the next 3 to 4 hours,” IMD’s weather forecasting division head Anupam Kashyapi said. “Packed isobars over the Arabian Sea are still persisting. Strong westerlies result in enhanced pressure gradient force, causing huge wind convergence over Konkan-Goa and in ghat sections of Madhya Maharashtra,” he said. The presence of a well-marked low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal is persisting almost at the same time, he said. There would not be much reduction in rainfall activity over the state and Pune district till Thursday, he said.
“The monsoon will continue to be vigorous over the state today and tomorrow,” the official said. Meanwhile, incessant rains in Pune and other western Maharashtra districts led to a rise in the water level of various dams. The collective water storage of Khadakwasla, Temghar, Warasgaon and Panshet dams, which provide water supply to Pune city, reached over 12 TMC (thousand million cubic feet), which is 42 per cent of the total collective capacity of the four reservoirs, a district administration official said.
“As the Khadakwasla dam is filling up rapidly, water is being released from it at 10,000 cubic feet per second (cusec),” the official said.
